I wish that there were more hours in the day. Or that I could stop time for a while. I want to be able to do everything I need to do and have time left over for what I want to do.
Today I have spent time (several hours probably) in my pajamas. Doing "nothing". Watching TV. Knitting. Drinking coffee. All the while feeling just a smidge guilty about the things that "have to" be done. Pay bills. Sort laundry. Change the sheets. Wash laundry. Dry laundry. Hang things that shrink. Fold laundry. Get laundry upstairs. Put laundry away. Can you see a theme here.
I want to clean the kitchen. There is crud on the counter. Smears from hand-making sandwiches without a cutting board or plate underneath. Clean pots and pans, dry or drying. The top of the stove is glass, but it doesn't shine like I wish it did. It too needs to be cleaned. The white sink has crumbs and greasiness and some sort of other stuff.
The list just goes on and on. I am happy when these things are all clean and spic and span. I may not be 100% done with all of the blues in my life, but the sight and smell of a clean house is such a wonderful perfume to me. A shiny sink or floor is the best jewelery. For me anyway.
I am sure I didn't keep the house as clean as I remember in my imagination. For one thing, when the kids were all living at home, we had a kitchen floor that was 80's gold. The kind that doesn't show dirt. I do know that I kept the counters cleaner than they are now. And for another thing, most of the time the kids were little we didn't have cats and dogs. Cats seem to have the need to puke a lot. And they scratch the furniture. The dog has accidents. Not as much as when he was a puppy, but shit does happen. And all of them have way more hair than our floors and furniture need.
When the kids were at home, it seemed like we were feeding an army. Five kids is almost an army. But there were their friends. Oh how I loved having all of those friends here with us. Eating with us. Making noise and laughing and running around the house.
Now we have different expenses. Car insurance for four of us. Cell phones and data plans. Internet and cable. Four cars. Wow. For the first 15 years of our marriage we only had one car. When the fourth baby was on the way it was clean that the 1981 (?) Volvo we had was not big enough for four kids in the back seat. So, we got our first mini van. And our first second car. We went back to being a one car family for a short while when we were in Taiwan and China. When we came home from China, our Ford mini van was on it's way back to the US, but we needed a car in the mean time so we bought a big old Oldsmobile station wagon.
My thoughts are everywhere today! I am not used to writing in the daylight! I usually stay up past midnight (way past midnight). If I am going to write, that's usually when I do it.
My body has not been very kind to me lately. I have had chest pains that turned out not to be my heart. I have rashes/ hives that start up and don't stop until I have scratched myself into a giant welt. My thyroid is huge. I feel it, it hurts. I am told one day that the isthmus of my thyroid is so large and thick that it is causing me to have difficulty breathing. I get tests. I worry. I am sure it is dangerous, even fatal. My sister and my husband both go with me to the doctor to learn my results. I am sure I will need their support. And the doctor says I am fine. I don't need an endocrinologist. He treats hundreds of people with my problem. I need an allergist and I need to lose weight (duh).
So I still worry, but I don't think I am dying this month. It is a relief and a let down. I wanted an answer, or answers. Instead I feel like I got a pat on the head. On some weird level I almost want something to be terribly wrong. Then maybe all of my children would want to be in touch with me and would be sorry for treating me badly. And maybe then I could justify having maid service. Oh well. Be careful what you wish for they say.
I am not someone who cries easily. But recent "stuff" has made me more tearful than I want to be. I know (I hope) that everything will work itself out between myself and the child who needs to separate himself from me right now. But it makes me feel so hurt and vulnerable. It is a kind of grief.
I asked Nick the other day if he thinks that grief ever goes away. He said no, it just changes. I guess you just get used to it. And it doesn't weigh you down constantly, every second after a while. Or it does and you don't notice because it becomes your new normal.
And we were talking about something I cannot recall. All of a sudden I felt tears and I missed my mother so much I couldn't stand it. I got her for almost the whole first 50 years of my life. I guess that's pretty good. I just wish there had been more time. She did too. When she knew she was dying she said "it's not fair". She was crying. She was cheated. We all were.
